


get ready to rumble (or the way to a woman’s heart is through her stomach)

by greyedscale



Series: dustbunny week 2020 [3]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Competition, Earth Rumble, F/M, First Meetings, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, bakusquad in background, except the lov, flirting and fighting go hand in hand, kiribaku is background, mysterious doppleganger drama between shindou and izu? of course yes, they’re all earthbenders, tournament
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:00:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25807000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyedscale/pseuds/greyedscale
Summary: It’s Earth Rumble 38, and challenger, Handy Man (entered by his friends), must go on a journey to defeat the six-time reigning champion, Miruko! How will this play out when one’s style is the ultimate defense and the other’s is the ultimate offense?
Relationships: Bakugou Katsuki/Kirishima Eijirou, League of Villains & Shigaraki Tomura | Shimura Tenko, Shigaraki Tomura | Shimura Tenko/Usagiyama Rumi | Miruko
Series: dustbunny week 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1862929
Kudos: 22





	get ready to rumble (or the way to a woman’s heart is through her stomach)

“Wellllllcome to Earth Rumble Thirty-Eight!!!!!” the announcer shouts into his attached microphone, rising via a self-bended platform. “I am your host, Xin Fu!”

The crowd cheers as they welcome the well-loved commentator back for yet another day of fighting. Once the noise dies down a little, the host deems it time to continue.

He smirks as he announces dramatically, “As always, the rules are simple. Just knock the other guy out of the ring, and…you win!”

The audience roars again, and Xin Fu raises his arms for quiet. Like a well-trained orchestra, the noise dies down. “Now,” and Xin Fu uses his earthbending to catapult himself towards the announcer’s box, “Let the fights begin!!!”

A shirtless boy with a green motif in his uniform bursts out of the left side of the ring. His smile is just a touch unsettling as he makes his entrance. “On the left, we have Grand: The Earthquake Mas-terrrr!” Grand flips his black hair as he winks at the audience, and, predictably, many of the more gullible girls sigh in unison.

“And on the right, we have...” Boom! Another shirtless boy, this time with red hair and a sunshine smile bursts through the preparatory area. “…The Unnnnn-breakablllllle Red Riot!” Red Riot waves at the crowd, and in one corner, a grumpy ash-blonde can be seen holding a sign that read ‘Gambatte Unbreakable!’ with three hooligans hooting and hollering next to him.

Without a countdown, Xin Fu starts the fight with a ring of a bell. DOOOOOONG!

Immediately, Grand is on the offensive, widening his stance and slamming his foot onto the platform, causing an earthquake to shake the entire stadium. The vibrations of the earthquake travels across towards Red Riot, intent on throwing him off balanced.

But, instead of being caught off guard, Red Riot jumps up, rock flying up with him to coat his skin like an armor.

“I’ll show you…the manly power of the Unbreakable Red Riot,” he shouts to cheers from his fans in the crowd. He dashes through the unstable ground, fluidly making his way through all the debris to sock Grand in the face with an earth-reinforced right hook. Grand goes flying back until he’s only saved by his hold on the edge of the raised fighting ring. He looks up at Red Riot in desperation, eyes seeming to shine with…something.

Red Riot walks towards him with slow measured steps. “Grand…no matter how much you try to pretend…you’ll never be anything but a cheap imitation of Deku. You may have convinced everyone else with those unmanly accusations of yours, but for those of us who know him, we’ll never accept you as one of ours.” And with that dramatic declaration, he stomps once, goes through the precise motions drilled into him by hours upon hours of practice and breaks Grand’s last hold off from the rest of the stadium.

He falls, snarling insults as he goes.

“Aaaaaand, the winner of this round iiiiiiis…the Unbreakabllllllle! Red! Riottttt!!!” Xin Fu seems to finally remember to do his job as an announcer.

There’s a roaring from the crowd for the brutal take-down, and Red Riot pumps his fist in the air in victory, basking in the support.

After a few minutes’ break for Xin Fu to fix reset the ring and for Red Riot to catch his breath a little, the next round is underway. As per Earth Rumble rules, Red Riot will be the one that faces the next opponents unless someone beats him. “Who shall Red Riot face next?” Xin Fu starts exciting the crowd. “Of course, it’s an old crowd favorite, Uuuuuuravityyy!!”

A girl in a pink uniform jumps in the ring, seeming to almost float. In reality, she’s walking on the tiniest specs of dirt, so thin, most people miss it when they stare down at the platform from their distant seats.

“How will Red Riot fare in a battle to the death with our cute regular herself?”

DOOOOOONG!!

Both contestants start moving at once, charging straight at each other. Red Riot reinforces himself with earth once again, sharp smirk evident for all to see. Uravity on the other hand, kicking up shards of earth with each step, creating a cloud of dust behind her.

“Some background for those of you new to Earth Rumble,” Xinfu starts commentating, sensing that the fight between these two didn’t need as much space as the previous fight did (on account of there not being personal issues and dirty laundry being aired out during this round), “Red Riot and Uravity are actually old friends as well! They were trained in martial arts by the same master, the venerable Eraserhead! For those of you unaware, Eraserhead is – to this day – still the reigning champion of our sister competition for martial arts: Martial Might! If anyone would like to buy tickets to the next Martial Might, please see Present Mic, the host of that fight once Earth Rumble is over! He will be waiting by the exits.” The lights suddenly move to shine on a man with his hair gelled into the tallest possible pompadour anyone has ever seen. He raises his hand as a silent greeting, waving tickets in his other hand like a fan.

Suddenly, the spotlights move back towards the platform where people could notice something big was happening. Red Riot had his teeth bared in a snarl, and Uravity was pinned by him.

Newer audience members were confused on why Xin Fu hasn’t called the fight just yet, but older audience members knew.

“Look up.” A hushed murmuring goes through the crowd.

Looking up, there’s a hoard of sharp rocks floating above the entire ring. Then, like a switch was flipped, the rocks start plummeting down all at once. Red Riot lets go of Uravity in favor of gathering more earth to brace himself, but he is a bit too late. The rock fragments crash into him, knocking him towards the edge of the ring. He reaches his hand out to grasp…anything…and his scrambling fingers grab hold of the edge of the ring. Only, he had _thought_ he grabbed the edge of the ring, but what he actually grabbed was a piece of rock Uravity had strategically placed by the edge. With a flick of her wrist, Red Riot loses his grip as the rock flies upwards, nailing an ash-blond audience member. Red Riot plummets down to his loss.

“What an upset! What a treat to watch! The winner of this round is our very own Uravity!!”

If anything, the cheering for Uravity is even louder than what Red Riot had gotten earlier, but the man doesn’t seem to hold it against the crowd. In fact, he had already made his way through the preparation rooms to join his friends in the audience seats. If one looked over at that group, they could see Red Riot whooping and hollering in support of his previous opponent.

Uravity seems embarrassed as she gives a shy wave to her supporters. “Thank you for your support!”

The next round is between Uravity and Mudman. Mudman’s specialty seems to be softening the earth, and he made good use of this ability, grabbing onto Uravity’s ankles again and again. However, before long, Uravity outsmarts him through riding a larger chunk of earth she bended in the shape of a flying carpet. She smirks as grabs him from behind and uses an akido move to slam him behind her shoulder. He loses.

Ten minutes later, a tired out Uravity is facing a scowling fellow named Overhaul. Overhaul seems to

Be on Xin Fu’s bad side for some reason, as the announcer has a notable change in attitude, vastly less enthusiastic when talking about the emo-looking man.

Unfortunately, her previous battles seem to have tired her out too much, and Overhaul’s specialty in breaking apart and reforming earth quickly got the better of her. She loses the match.

Smirking, Overhaul cracks his knuckles as he waits for Xin Fu to fix the fighting ring. As soon as Xin Fu is done, Overhaul, grabs onto the man’s shoulder, speaking into Xin Fu’s microphone, “No one else here is a match for me. Why don’t you just send your strongest fighter out now?”

Xin Fu backhands Overhaul. “Bi- ahem. Sorry, but no can do. You’ll have to go through the whole competition like everyone else to prove you worthy of…her.”

“Her? Never mind, forget it. I’m not gonna fight some weakass pretty girl who’s only here to draw in viewers.”

“You’ll regret that,” a newcomer says. And from the other side of the ring, his originally scheduled competitor, Cementoss emerges. The man slams his balled fists together. “I’ll rid you of that perception.”

Then, without another word, the two competitors are leaping at each other, and Xin Fu quickly bends his way back to the commentator’s platform. “And another old face, Cementoss, the person who introduced previous competitors Red Riot and Uravity to Earth Rumble, is here to teach the rude upstart Overhaul a lesson!”

It was a long and drawn out battle, but, in the end, Overhaul’s taking apart and restructuring ability was no match for Cementoss’s experience. Overhaul was trapped in a box of earth and could not take it apart quick enough for Cementoss to bend it over the edge of the ring.

“It’s Cementoss’s match!!!” Xin Fu announces. “Take that, you tosser!” He also accidentally murmurs into the mic, comment most likely aimed at Overhaul.

At this time, there’s a longer break for the audience to stretch their legs, go to the restroom, and generally not be fidgety.

Dabi claps Tenko on the back. “You ready to get out there and kick fucking ass, buddy?”

Tenko looks back at his friend, annoyed. “What, with a name like _Handy Man_??? Seriously, what were you and Himiko fucking thinking!” Dabi and Himiko were part of Tenko’s rag-tag group of friends who made their living off random one-off jobs and requests. Dabi was a firebender, Compress and Magne were airbenders, and Himiko and Kurogiri were waterbenders. Tenko was the only earthbender in the group, so in a bid to fuck around, Dabi and Himiko had entered him into the first underground earthbending competition they had found as soon as they got to the Earth Kingdom. Under the stupid fucking name _Handy Man_. It really makes Tenko want to hate his friends, but he knows he can’t.

“C’mon, don’t be like that; it’s just a fuckin’ joke, _Handy_ ,” Himiko pipes up swinging her knives around. She may be a waterbender, but her real specialty laid in knife-handling.

“Alright, alright, just stop waving those knives around, woman.” Tenko responds gruffly yet somehow with a tint of fondness in there.

“I’m gonna go up there. Imma kick all of their asses, and then you two,” he points dramatically at his two grinning friends, “are gonna get it when we get back to base.”

“Watcha gonna do, _Handy_?” Himiko starts.

“Crush us? After Kurogiri’s already banned you from doing so in his vicinity?” Dabi finishes.

Tenko whaps them on the back of their heads by ejecting rounded shards of earth from the wall behind them. “Shut it.” He affixes the last hand from his uniform over his face. “I’ll figure it out sooner or later.”

Still clutching their heads, his friends wish him good luck as he starts walking towards the ‘entrance,’ marked by a chalk-drawn arrow.

He turns back to face them after he’s earthbended an opening for himself, silhouette lighting up dramatically. “Luck? I don’t need luck.”

Then he steps out into the arena, closing the opening behind him. He smirks. _Time to fight!_

* * *

“Next up, we have a complete newcomer to fights: _Handy Maaaaan_!” Tenko hears Xin Fu’s announcement. He walks measuredly up the stairs and onto the platform that serves as the competition’s fighting ring. He bows shallowly to Cementoss. Better give some respect to his seniors. “Let’s have a good match,” he pronounces.

“Likewise,” Cementoss responds, seemingly approving of his good match. They both have already tuned out the sound of the crowds, the sound of the announcer, their entire bodies focused on the sound of the starting bell, fighting mindset already engaged.

Tenko hears himself breathe in then out. He feels the humidity of Cementoss’s sweat.

 _Breathe in_. _Breathe out_.

…

DOOOOOONG!!

The match has begun.

Tenko makes the first move, chasing after Cementoss, who, predictably, has moved back to create some more distance between them. Tenko knows Cementoss’s style is trap his opponent in a box. Too bad for him, Tenko’s specialty is breaking rock apart to dust. Dust that would be hard for anyone to form together in short time. The moment he sees Cementoss aiming walls of earth at him, Tenko claps his hands together. Suddenly, the entire top layer of the platform explodes and puffs out as dust. The entire ring is covered in a dust cloud, and Tenko takes advantage of the obscuring cover it provides.

Silently, he dashes towards Cementoss, manipulating the earth around him to confuse his sense of direction, and then-

He pushes. And Cementoss falls.

He’s won his first match in less than five minutes.

He’s panting but in exhilaration rather than exhaustion. His eyes are shining at having participated in a challenge that wasn’t life-threatening for once. _It’s an adrenaline rush he could get addicted to_.

He closes his eyes snaps his arms down and back. The dust returns to give the platform another inch. The crowd watches with bated breath as they hadn’t been able to see what happened the moment the dust obfuscated their vision of the arena.

“I don’t believe it,” Xin Fu announces, breathless, “the dark horse, the newcomer, _Handy Maaan_ has defeated the old hat, Cementoss!!”

The crowd roars. “Incredible,” Xin Fu continues. “Unlike what many had predicted, it’s going to be newbie Handy Man up against the reigning champion of Earth Rumble, six-time winner, our goddess and queen herself: Miiiiiiirukooo!”

At the end of Xin Fu’s introduction, part of the wall that sectioned off the preparation rooms from the fighting ring practically explodes, and a figure darts out, doing three flips in the air and lands on her feet. It’s Miruko.

The audience goes wild, and it seems that everyone’s been waiting just to get a glimpse of her. And Tenko can see why.

His breath is taken away at how beautiful she looks–woa, Xin Fu really was right, she looks exactly like a goddess. Holy shit. But, even more, she looks like a good fighter, and Tenko is fucking excited.

Miruko seems to finally see Tenko, and she immediately bursts out laughing. “Dude, what’s up with your fucking uniform?” She asks in between laughs.

Tenko lets out a snort of his own. “My friends’ idea of a joke.”

“Damn, some friends you got there,” she snipes back quickly.

“No it’s okay, I know I need new ones,” Tenko responds dryly, mockingly.

“I like you, Skinny Hand Man. You’re amusing…I think you’ll give a good fight.” She points at Tenko in challenge.

“Alright, stop flirting with your challengers to get them off guard, Miruko.” Xin Fu cuts in.

“You fucking call this flirting, Xin Fu? Nah, this is just foreplay for our match.”

Xin Fu looks fondly resigned. “Please, Miruko, you’re killing us.”

“Good.” The audience laughs. Tenko thinks he should say something, get things moving, but Miruko beats him to it.

“Start the fucking match, Xin Fu, Skinny fucking Hand Man over there is getting antsy and to be honest, so am I.”

Xin Fu sighs as he starts launching himself towards the commentator’s area. “It’s Handy Man.”

“Whatever.” Miruko barely acknowledges him.

They’re both waiting for the sound of the bell, muscles tensed and ready to move. The anticipation makes the air around them practically crackle. Then.

_DOOOOOONG!!_

It feels like it only takes a single instant for Miruko to be upon him, and Tenko has to scramble to disintegrate the earth she’s used to reinforce her kick. However, even without the earth armor, there’s so much force behind the kick, Tenko’s almost blown away anyway. But he holds on in the last minute.

They exchange feral smiles after that opening move, taking a moment to catch their breath. Soon, they’re launching back into the fight.

Miruko gets into a solid stance, breathes in, then starts punching and kicking, twirling gracefully like a ballerina. However, Tenko doesn’t have time to admire her form; huge fucking chunks of the platform are flying at him faster than most earthbenders could move boulders of smaller size. But…this is Tenko’s specialty: breaking shit apart.

He feels the wind caused by the momentum of the pieces of earth hurtling towards him and shoves his right hand forward. The moment he makes contact with the rock, it crumbles into a pile of fine dirt at Tenko’s feet. He starts to alternate his hands quickly, as if he were giving open hand jabs to catch each of the pieces of earth coming at him.

Soon enough, Miruko is running out of solid ground to use, so she smirks, and uses and earthbending-boosted jump to reach the ceiling. Then, she she rips out even bigger chunks and starts hurling those at Tenko. They’re both panting hard, having used a lot of stamina on all of their moves, but they’re both having the most fun they’ve had in a long ass time.

Like a nerd, Tenko raises both arms high. “Kame-hame-haaaa!”

The rock that was previously the ceiling dissolves, all moment stopped.

She thuds heavily on the destroyed platform that had already sunk so that it was only six feet at most above the out of bounds ground. Tenko’s missed a couple of the projectiles thrown at him, and they line his side of the arena. Said projectiles have also dislodged most of his hands and cut through parts of his clothes, revealing his overly pale skin.

While Tenko is catching his breath, Miruko slams her hand into the ground directly in front of her, and the previous projectiles and dirt laying in a pile at Tenko’s feet start to rise, joining the rest of ring, shooting the two competitors skywards back to their original height.

“You ready for round two, you pale ass Skinny Hand Man?”

Instead of responding, Tenko lauches an attack of his own, shoving his hand into the ground to disintegrate an entire half of the fighting ring.

Unfortunately, Miruko was able to jump out of the way quickly enough, and they start duking it out on the remaining half of the stadium.

Five minutes pass, and it is still unclear who is closer to being the winner of this match. Both contestants are doubled over in a rare pause of their fast-paced, intense battle.

“Aaaand stop!” Xin Fu shouts into this microphone. Everyone turns to stare at him. Miruko drops a lump of earth as she turns her attention to the announcer, and Tenko let’s gravity affect the mass of dirt he was about to send Miruko’s way.

_THUD!_

“We’re getting nowhere with this fight. It’s been thirty minutes already, and we’re no closer to a winner here. Unfortunately…I feel that we should postpone this fight. Give it it’s own day…say…a week from now?” Xin Fu explains.

Both Miruko and Tenko nod their assent.

“Then that is itttt! For this Earth Rumble Thirty Eight!” He pronounces for the audience’s benefit.

The crowd boos and complains in response, disappointed that they won’t get to see who wins this match and that their entertainment is ending so soon. While that’s happening, Miruko launches herself into the commentator’s platform with some well-timed bending and steals Xin Fu’s microphone.

“Stop booing, you fucking losers. If there’s another fight, you get to see an even more incredible battle that lasts for even longer at a later date. Isn’t that fucking better than one of us arbitrarily winning here?”

“Y-yeah,” Xin Fu adds, snatching his microphone back, “and anyone who presents an Earth Rumble Thirty Eight ticket when buying the _Miruko vs. Handy Man_ _Fight to the Ground_ ticket will get half off!”

This seems to appease the crowd, and they start filing out of the stadium with less complaining than before, some stopping to buy tickets to other events on their way out. Miruko backflips back onto the stadium and smirks, nodding at Tenko.

“You’re not so bad, huh, Crackers,” she teases lightly, dramatically leering at Handy Man’s exposed body from where his clothing had ripped during their fight.

“What?” he lets out, shocked.

Miruko sighs, covering part of her face with her right hand. She seems to think about something for a few seconds before shaking her head, coming to a decision. “Wanna get dinner together?”

Handy Man is shocked. And blushing. “You asking _me_ on a date?”

“Why else would we get fucking dinner? To fucking continue duking it out?” she shoots back sardonically.

Tenko’s brain seems to reboot itself, and he accepts the invitation, blushing like a schoolgirl. “Huh…Sure, let’s get outta here.”

Miruko offers him her hand, palm up as if he were an old-fashioned lady, and she the gentleman about to escort him to his next engagement. He takes her hand.

“By the way…my name’s actually Shimura Tenko. My friends were the ones who entered me in this fight, and they thought it was _so funny_ to give me that stupid ass name.” _Fuck you Dabi. And you too Himiko for egging him on. We’ll see who laughs when I enter them respectively into the next illegal fire-bending and water-bending competitions I find._ He finds them in the lingering crowd and flips them off, a signal that they’re going to have to be the ones to pick up his scattered hands.

“Interesting,” Miruko laughs at his ignoble fate, drawing his attention back to her. “Then you can call me Usagiyama when we’re not in the ring, Ten- _shi_ ~.”

“Of course, of course, Princess Yami,” Tenko teases back derisively yet light-heartedly. _Yeah, Dabi and Himiko are gonna have to figure out dinner for themselves_.

“Excuse you, I am a fucking _queen_!”

Tenko smiles, taking the hand on his face off and dropping it carelessly.

“Of course, Queen Yami.”

**Author's Note:**

>  **[note 1]** The number 38 was taken from the number of wins Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipović (of which Miruko’s hero name is based on) has in his MMA record. 6-time reigning champ is based on Miruko being the Number 6 hero in canon.  
>  **[note 2]** come scream with my friends and i: [ https://discord.gg/GTNHyNr](https://discord.gg/GTNHyNr)  
> 


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